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Topic: Does anyone in your home have a Cpap/BiPap/etc? (Read 4630 times)

I'm trying to get some info for a friend. I want to know how many people use or have used a cPap-type device. This is just these kinds of devices - not any other snoring-decreasing methods or anything else. This one's really simple - that's why there's no Other category! It's really just this straightforward.

I don't want to skew the results first-answer-given, but a Cpap has been recommended for me, bought, and rejected. I can't sleep with it. AT ALL. I know, there are different mask styles, etc, but I can't sleep with it on and I can't picture doing any better with any other style. So now I have a $1000 brick. I'll take my chances.

My aunt has one and it's really changed her life. She did say it gets some getting used to. I think it took her about 2 weeks. What she did was take over the counter sleep medication and when it kicked in she would put the Cpap on and then fall right asleep.

CPAP here. I love it. I was falling asleep at my desk at work (the falling mouse would wake me up) and felt very sleepy even after 12 hours of sleep. Even after one night I could tell a difference and it took about 2 weeks to get pretty used to it. I even use it to take naps on the rare occasions that I do that.

There are times, even after 5 years, that it annoys me (if I'm already having a restless night due to other factors) but most of the time I'm like Pavlov's dog with it. Put it on, I fall asleep. The only position I can't sleep with it on is on my stomach but I can sleep in any other positions. For the first 2 weeks or so though, I did sleep on my back.

I have been using a CPAP since January of 2012. It is a torture device. It takes a long time to get used to it and I don't think I sleep any better. I wake up because my noses itches and you have to rearrange the mask to get to the itch. Heaven help you if you drool in your sleep. And there are times when it feels like I am being smothered. Now the weird thing is while I get a crap night sleep with it on, I am so used to wearing it I have a hard time falling asleep with out it.

But the end result is that my husband can sleep in the same room with me. So he is happy.

DH has a Cpap and fought me tooth and nail about getting one. It took him several weeks to be able to sleep with it on all night. He started with an hour and every few days he kept it on longer and longer. Now he's conditioned fairly well and is out just about as soon as his head hits the pillow.

Best part is that I don't have to sleep with ear plugs anymore, nor feel him thrashing about in the night.

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Meditate. Live purely. Quiet the mind. Do your work with mastery. Like the moon, come out from behind the clouds! Shine. ---Gautama Buddah

I love mine. The tech who calibrated it told me that if people are borderline, they generally find it hard to adjust to, but the people who need one desperately find the improved sleep so beneficial that they adjust more easily. I was getting down into the 70% of oxygenation without a CPAP; I would wake up with my heart pounding but without any memory of a scary dream. Of course, what it was was adrenaline release because I was smothering! I can sleep without mine (especially if it's only a nap). However, when the snooze alarm goes off, I'll still keep it on, because after a night's sleep with it on, it just feels better that way.

DH has one, and it has made an amazing difference. He was scary bad. Normally you go to the sleep center two nights. One to see if you need one, and one to calibrate it. They were literally scared he would die at the center on his first night. So they woke him and started on the calibration. Instead of wakes per hour, they used wakes per minute for him. Both my parents have one. We suspect my grandfather died from Apnea. All three I know adjusted quickly. Even my mother who only did the sleep study to get dad and I to shut up about it. I confess that once or twice I've used my husband's when I needed a nap and I was sick with stuff in my lungs.

Over the last eight years I have tried to get used to a cpap. Third time was the charm. Smaller face mask, newest machine and this time, insurance picked up the bill. (Last two times I wound up paying the whole thing and, as someone else noted, now have two very expensive paper weights.)

The new mask is a lady's quatro and covers both nose and mouth. Both my other masks covered nose and mouth, but they were SO huge and had so many little presure point holders I kind of felt like was...well, that unfortunate gentleman in "Alien". The new one is approximately the size of a painter's cloth mask, is very comfortable (though I had to tighten it a bit more than I wanted) and doesn't leave marks in the morning.

I am actually wearing it every night. Most every night...I still have nights where I fall asleep on the couch.

It has made a difference because, even though I am a night owl and will stay up until all hours (reading ehell) I can fire up the cpap and even with four hours of sleep I feel more alive than I did after seven hours of sleep without it. Are there days when I feel claustrophobic? Oh, sure...but this has made a huge difference for me.

By the way, stomach sleepers (and anyone that doesn't like heavy, chunky masks), try the Sleepweaver Élan (www.sleepweaver.com). It's soft and let's you move around. Much better than the plastic - or even nasal pillows.

When I was significantly heavier, I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea, and got a c-pap machine, but barely used it, as I couldn't get used to the air. I had people tell me that I would get used to it, but I never did. Once I lost my weight, I gave up trying, it just sits in a closet collecting dust, I did try to sell it on Kijiji (stating that whoever purchased it would have to get the prescription changed on it), but the most I got offered was I think $20-$30 or somewhere around there, not worth it!

I fought the whole idea vigorously for a good 10 years, because I knew I would never be able to sleep with all that stuff on my face. I finally surrendered because I got tired of waking up gasping and terrified - it was as if my body had forgotten how to start breathing again. When I started using the mask, I immediately upped my sleep time from 3-4 frequently disturbed hours to 6-7-8 hours of good sound sleep. I don't have to get up to pee and I have started dreaming again.

I use the nasal pillows. I still don't care for the headgear and the intersting hairstyles that come with it, but I have been reading about a new system (Bella grey by Resmed) where the whole thing is held on by loops over the ears. I would love it if that would work for me.